NT Chief Minister resigns

Transcript

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KERRY O'BRIEN: The federal election outcome has also given the Northern Territory's Chief Minister Clare Martin cause to ponder her own future. The Territory's first Labor party chief minister, Ms Martin announced her resignation in Darwin this morning. She's been in the top job for just over six years but blamed and strains brought on her office by the Federal Government's intervention in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities earlier this year as a key reason. The Chief Minister has also been Indigenous Affairs Minister and she struggled for the past couple of years to defend her record in that portfolio. Murray McLaughlin reports.

MURRAY MCLAUGHLIN: At Labor's party in Darwin on Saturday night, Clare Martin was welcoming the change of government in Canberra.

CLARE MARTIN, NT CHIEF MINISTER: We will work with the Rudd Labor Government in partnership and that's what's been missing so far.

MURRAY MCLAUGHLIN: But now Clare Martin is missing as chief minister of the Northern Territory. She decided yesterday to resign and announced the decision this morning.

CLARE MARTIN: I have done my time as Chief Minister, and I stand down.

CROWD: We love you Clare.

MURRAY MCLAUGHLIN: Clare Martin was the toast of the Labor party when she won government in August, 2001.

CROWD: Clare, Clare.

MURRAY MCLAUGHLIN: It was the narrowest of victories but it destroyed the dominance of the country Liberal party, which had ruled the Northern Territory since self government in 1978. Even before she was sworn in as chief minister, Clare Martin had sought to establish her credentials with the Territory's Indigenous population. By attending the annual Garma Festival in Arnhem Land with a group of newly elected Aboriginal members of Parliament. She took for herself the portfolio of Indigenous affairs and has held it ever since. Clare Martin's re-election in June 2005 nearly annihilated the country Liberal party. Labor won 19 of the 25 seats in the legislative assembly. The Labor campaign had a big emphasis on law and order and promised to crack down on so called itinerants, code for Indigenous people who sleep rough in Darwin. The policy was diluted in practice but it did distress the party's left wing.

WARREN SNOWDON, NT LABOR PARTY PRESIDENT: I think it caused a few eyebrows to be raised and I think there's no secret there are people who are concerned about the possibility of ultimately just drunks.

MURRAY MCLAUGHLIN: Only a year after her re-election, Clare Martin was under attack from within her own caucus. A leaked memo by Aboriginal MLA Matthew Bonson criticised her performance as Indigenous Affairs Minister. Bonson would keep his job as Government whip, but he was forced to apologise.

CLARE MARTIN: Matthew Bonson has unreservedly apologised. He said he had a brain explosion.

MURRAY MCLAUGHLIN: Then in May this year, relations between Clare Martin and her Indigenous caucus further plummeted when special legislation overturned a Supreme Court decision which had invalidated Government approval of the expansion of the Macarthur River zinc mine, in the Gulf of

Carpentaria. Clare Martin refused to delay the legislation till after the funeral of an Aboriginal man who had lead opposition to the mine. Clare Martin's environment minister, an Aboriginal woman, deliberately abstained from voting. Three other Aboriginal MLA's crossed the floor.

MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY, ARNHEM LABOR MLA: It was a disgrace, because it was the lowest form of disrespect against Indigenous people in this country. When a great win had occurred for a senior traditional elder who had just passed away and had not even been buried. And I was devastated.

MURRAY MCLAUGHLIN: But it was the Howard Government's takeover in June of Northern Territory Aboriginal communities which most upset Clare Martin. Representing as it did an attack on the Territory's already limited sovereignty, and on her handling of the long festering issue of Aboriginal child sexual abuse. Clare Martin this morning identified the Federal intervention as a key reason behind her decision to step down.

CLARE MARTIN: I won't deny that the intervention has had a big impact on my decision. I think the last six months for me, and it's probably why there is a level of emotion here today for me, have been the toughest of my political career. Every single day has been tough. And when I watched Alexander Downer on the Insiders yesterday stand there and say, 'well we were really struggling a year ago, we thought the intervention of the Territory would be popular, but it didn't work for us in terms of lifting our results in the polls' , it actually made me feel quite ill. So can I say that the last six months have been for me very challenging and that's been part of my decision making.

MURRAY MCLAUGHLIN: The new chief minister is Paul Henderson, a former fitter who moved to Darwin from Tasmania 24 years ago. He's taken a new portfolio of Territory federal relations. The new deputy chief minister is Marion Scrymgour whose likely appointment as Indigenous affairs minister will recognise that a new relationship needs to be brokered with the Territory's Aboriginal people.